Burnaby politicians pointing fingers over rumour of students being injected with gay serum (with video)

Burnaby school board candidate Katrina Chen is concerned about rumours targeting Manadarin-speaking voters that schools will be allowed to inject students to turn them homosexual.Photo by
Submitted

The civic party aiming to knock off Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan in the upcoming municipal election is denying it’s behind an alleged rumour campaign targeting Mandarin-speaking Chinese voters that appears to be connected to the school district’s controversial anti-homophobic policy of three years ago.

Katrina Chen, who is running for school board as part of Corrigan’s Burnaby Citizens Association (BCA) team, said she laughed at first when a Mandarin-speaking acquaintance asked her two weeks ago if it was true that the BCA would allow Burnaby schools to use an injection on students that could turn them homosexual.

The acquaintance, who works at a restaurant Chen regularly frequents, said she was told this by a fellow parent at the local community centre.

Chen said the parent was a volunteer for the opposing Burnaby First Coalition.

“I was laughing and I thought nobody is going to believe this,” Chen told The Province Friday. “And she said ‘No, well, actually, a lot of parents gave their contact information because they feel so scared. So that’s when I started to feel that ‘Oh, my gosh, this is getting out of control.’”

The BFC categorically denied Friday that anyone associated with the party was involved in the spread of the alleged rumour, and even went so far as to suggest it was a campaign ploy orchestrated by the BCA to divert attention away from them.

“I’m still scratching my head … asking how such a strange rumour would get started,” said Bruce Friesen, campaign chair for the BFC. “A flat denial is what we are saying: we have no knowledge of anybody associated with our campaign that is doing this. I mean, they are certainly not getting any direction from anybody here.”

In 2011, the Burnaby School District adopted policy 5.45, a strategy designed to combat homophobia and provide support for students identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirited or queer.

The policy was the subject of much debate and protest, and led to the creation of the Parents’ Voice, a group opposed to it.

Three members of that group are now running under the BFC banner — Helen Ward and Charter Lau are running for council while Heather Leung is running for school board.

Friesen said that while the BFC represents a wide range of voices, he doesn’t think anyone from the parents’ group still considers policy 5.45 to be an issue.

“[M]any of the attitudes and perspectives from prior elections have been set aside or changed through dialogue, and I don’t think you are going to find today that Parents’ Voice people who were running on that particular batch are in the process of running on that issue anymore,” he said. “I think they’ve all learned something from their experience.”

Even before she heard the rumour, Chen said she read similar inaccurate allegations on an online forum catering to members of the Mandarin-speaking Chinese community. And more recently, she said she received a letter at her apartment, written in Mandarin, from the “B.C. Parents’ Voice” encouraging voters to support the BFC.

A copy of the letter, which provides the BFC’s website and a phone number, was provided to The Province. A partial translation, by Chen’s staff, was also provided.

“Personally, I don’t agree with dirty campaigns,” said Chen, who also speaks Mandarin. “But … this is not just an attack on the LGBTQ community, it is an attack on the immigrant community — the Chinese-Mandarin speaking community. They are taking advantage of the people that may not have the language ability to look into the facts, or policy 5.45, or check the school website. They are also attacking our public education. Because they are making people feel unsafe about our schools.”

While he didn’t want to comment on the contents of the letter because he had not seen it, Friesen said it could be a case of third-party advertising.

“It’s distinctly possible that what’s happened here is that you have some people who are basically supporting the campaign as third-party advertisers,” he said. “And I hope they are following the rules on third-party advertising, because if they aren’t they are the ones that are going to be charged with offences under the Elections Act, not us.”

Daren Hancott, the mayoral candidate for the BFC, dismissed the rumours as people trying to make “something out of nothing.” He said policy 5.45 is not an election issue.

“Our candidates aren’t Parents’ Voice and we are a coalition of many independent people, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the past and we are moving forward,” he said, adding he could not comment on the letter because he hadn’t seen it.

“My personal position (on policy 5.45)? That every kid has equal opportunity, should be protected and needs to reach their full potential and everybody is equal as far as I’m concerned.”

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